Dietl, Eduard (1890–1944) bitter cost due to command ineptitude The raiders also suffered the usual misfortunes of war and were met by a sharp response by well-trained defenders The central operational lesson from the failure was that any landing needed to achieve surprise to be successful: all surprise had been lost at Dieppe, despite which failure of the landing was reinforced by rigid commanders It was also concluded that landings must be preceded by intense bombing and naval bombardment Smaller lessons concerned prior close scouting of the gradient and weight-bearing load of the beach, continuing need for close support fire in the initial phase, quick clearance by engineers of beach obstacles and mines, and improved shore-to-ship communications British and Canadian troops would apply all those lessons with real success on three of the five D-Day beaches In September 1944, Canadian troops entered and liberated Dieppe The raid was a key event for Canada: it reinforced a rising national demand that Canadian troops be allowed to fight under their own generals, and a growing sense of nationhood and political distinction from the interests of Great Britain Decades after the war there was still great bitterness in Canada about the role played by an ambitious but unqualified member of the royal family, Louis Mountbatten See also MULBERRY harbors; Pétain, Henri Philippe; prisoners of war DIETL, EDUARD (1890–1944) German general An ardent Freikorps member and early Nazi in the 1920s, Dietl was a divisional commander during the invasion of Poland in 1939 He led his Gerbirgsjäger (mountain troops) to northern Norway in 1940 He failed to take Murmansk in an advance out of Norway in 1941 He spent the remainder of his war in Karelia, celebrated as a Nazi hero but in fact confined to a minor command in a peripheral theater Dietl was killed in an air accident in June 1944 DIETRICH, SEPP (1892–1966) Schutzstaffel (SS) general He fought in World War I and was an early and enthusiastic Nazi He rose along with the SS, at the head of Adolf Hitler’s personal SS bodyguard or Leibstandarte After leading an SS death squad that killed Sturmabteilung (SA) men in the Night of the Long Knives in 1934, he became a personal favorite of the Führer Dietrich was brutish in appearance and manner That only endeared him to his street fighter Führer, a former corporal who despised buttoned-up and aristocratic Prussian officers Dietrich commanded the Leibstandarte SS division from 1940 to 1942 He ordered his men to commit atrocities against captured Red Army soldiers at the Second Battle of Kharkov He was one of Adolf Hitler’s true favorites by 1944, and was promoted to command 1st SS “Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler” Panzer Korps, a large formation far beyond his abilities He commanded the same outfit, renamed 6th SS Panzer Army, during the Ardennes offensive, during which some of his men carried out the Malmédy massacre His unit was transferred to the southern front in March 1945 Instead of fighting to the bitter end as Hitler expected, Dietrich retreated into Austria to surrender to U.S forces in May He served less than 10 years for his war crimes, plus another 18 months on domestic charges for his part in the 1934 “Blood Purge.” 310